Park Street North in St. Pete<\/a> turned tragic. The Brickers’ home surveillance video captured the moment a car leaves the road, crashing into a pole and tree and rolling several times.<\/p>\n“I was just very frantic. I was running around the car a few times, looking inside, trying to see if anyone was inside. I didn’t know if they had passengers,” Erica Bricker said.<\/p>\n
St. Pete Police said the driver was going more than 100 miles per hour before losing control.<\/p>\n
The driver was ejected from the vehicle and died at the scene.<\/p>\n
“It was obvious there was no pulse. It was very heartbreaking,” Erica Bricker said.<\/p>\n
St. Pete Police said just a couple of days later there was a serious injury crash on this street that involved speeding.<\/p>\n
“We had one in which a car turned in front of a motorcyclist,” Yolanda Fernandez with St. Pete Police Department said.<\/p>\n
The Brickers said it’s tough to see, but unfortunately it’s not a new problem.<\/p>\n
“I believe it was 2023 or early 2024 we were leaving to get dinner at Jungle Prada Tavern and we almost got hit by a car going 80 miles an hour, a drunk driver,” Kevin Bricker said.<\/p>\n
They said it doesn’t matter what time it is.<\/p>\n
“It’s nonstop,” Bricker said.<\/p>\n
And for the Brickers, this isn’t just a busy road; it’s happening right outside their home.<\/p>\n
“I won’t let my kids out front anymore at all. There’s no upside,” Kevin Bricker said.<\/p>\n
“There’s a straightaway there, and then it kind of curves and turns into the brick streets. It can be very dangerous if you don’t slow down,” Fernandez said.<\/p>\n
St. Pete Police is planning a special operation to address speeding on Friday in the area. The Brickers say it’s a step in the right direction but they would like to see more.<\/p>\n
“I know it’s hard to put in speed bumps and things like that on this type of road because it’s a four lane but, something,” Erica Bricker said.<\/p>\n
The City of St. Pete sent this statement:<\/p>\n
“The City previously received resident concerns regarding the ability for pedestrians to safely cross Park Street in the vicinity of 28th Avenue North. This concern was addressed by the installation of an enhanced crosswalk including high emphasis markings, advanced stop bars, appropriate signage, center median refuge, and flashing beacons. Currently we are reviewing the same intersection and crosswalk for potential additional measures that could increase driver compliance and pedestrian comfort. Park Street is a County owned roadway, so we are also coordinating with their Transportation Department regarding any potential modifications.<\/p>\n
Concerning traditional traffic calming measures, Park Street is classified as an Arterial Roadway. Similar to most jurisdictions and national traffic calming guidance, the City does not allow vertical traffic calming (such as speed humps) to be installed on Arterial classified roads, as promulgated in the City’s Comprehensive Plan. Accordingly, we are not currently working on any enhancements that would include vertical traffic calming along this roadway segment. A potential future Comprehensive Plan modification could make available more mitigation options for this roadway, but speed humps will continue to not be an appropriate strategy for a 5-lane arterial roadway.<\/p>\n
While the city can’t install certain traffic calming features on this roadway that we could consider installing inside neighborhoods, and even on neighborhood collector classified roads, we are available to discuss concerns and perform speed studies. Specific resident concerns and data analysis could lead to additional safety enhancements like what happened with the previously-installed crosswalk. The Transportation Department also works closely with the Police Department and they routinely develop plans for driver education and enforcement to address concerning areas where motorists may need to be reminded that they must drive in an appropriate and legal manner.<\/p>\n
Concerned neighbors can reach out to city staff at any time. Here is information including multiple ways to make contact as well as programmatic information and FAQ’s: https:\/\/www.stpete.org\/residents\/community\/improve_your_neighborhood.php#trafficcalming<\/a>“<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People who live on Park Street North said that Sunday morning’s deadly crash is just highlighting a problem…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[7375,164033,164034,164035,202,204,203,199,201,200,59867],"class_list":["post-414027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-deadly-crash","tag-erica-bricker","tag-kevin-bricker","tag-park-street-north","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-yolanda-fernandez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}